Bones to Pick

I’m surprised by certain attitudes I come across in China. Attitudes are hard to explain and describe, but this past week my teachers said some things that make certain Chinese attitudes very clear.

Example one.
During my Chinese speaking class, the teacher started talking about China’s Taiwan. “If you go to China’s Taiwan this, and in China’s Taiwan that, and China’s Taiwan is very whatever.” My English classmate Andy, who is not afraid of anything, said, “China’s Taiwan? What about Taiwan’s own Taiwan?” (Andy is my hero.) The teacher said, “China’s Taiwan. Do you have a problem?” Yes, I do.

Example two.
During my Chinese listening class, we were discussing the Chinese phrase for “world famous.” The teacher asked us to give some examples. We mentioned the Great Wall of China, the Terracotta Warriors, and Qingdao beer. Then one student said, “And Jackie Chan!” The teacher frowned a little and then completely straight-faced said, “No, Jackie Chan cannot be considered world famous. See, in Africa they don’t know about him. In Africa, they have no movies and no TV. They are very poor. Jackie Chan is not world famous.” WTF??? My teacher is a graduate student.

I’m not even going to comment on these examples… I will leave that up to you.